Daily Archives: September 14, 2026

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Types of Empire (5) World Empire

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World map by the Equal Earth projection, which preserves relative size everywhere with a low level of shape distortion except for very near to the poles (public domain image)

 

 

 

(5) WORLD EMPIRE

 

An empire that shaped the world by how large, populous, rich, powerful, or influential it was.

A world empire is not necessarily a global empire – that is, an empire that is global by geographic extent. Few empires are truly global. Of my top ten empires, only two were global – the Spanish Empire, and even more so, the British Empire. For both, it was famously said that the sun never set on them, reflecting their geographic extent – albeit the British Empire borrowed the same phrase from the Spanish Empire, which in turn adapted similar phrases in usage from the Persian and Roman Empires.

You really only have global empires from the European maritime empires and those argued to be their successors – and not even all of them. Yes, I’d rank the French colonial empire as a global empire, but not the Belgian, Italian or German empires – although I’d give a pass (barely) to the Dutch empire as global due to the extent of its maritime trade, if not its actual colonial possessions.

Yes, I’d argue that a world empire has to be large, if not necessarily global in extent. By that criteria alone, three of my top ten empires rank among the ten largest empires in history and hence might be ranked as world empires – the Mongol Empire, the Chinese Qing Empire, and the Arab caliphates, with the Mongol Empire and Arab caliphates also having an impressive geographic range coming reasonably close to global extent.

But yes, I’d argue that the other criteria might count for as much or more.

Indeed, a competing measure of the largest empires by history is not by their area but by estimated percentage of contemporary world population. By that criteria, the Qing Empire ranks as the largest empire in history with 37% of the world population in 1800 AD, the Mongol Empire as fourth largest with 31% in 1290 AD, and the Roman Empire as the fifth largest with 30% in 150 AD. Outside the top ten largest empires by proportion of world population, which are mostly Chinese ones, other empires rank impressively – the British Empire with 23% in 1938 AD, the Maurya Empire with 19% in 250 BC, the Macedonian Empire with 15% in 323 BC, the Umayyad Caliphate with 13% in 750 AD, and the Persian Achaemenid Empire with 12% in 450 BC.

One might expect similar percentages of the contemporary world economy, particularly as the size of pre-industrial economies was largely a function of population.

So yes, I’d argue that all my top ten empires were world empires by one measure or another – by size or geographic extent, by population or by economy, and by power or influence,

And yes, that’s including the Macedonian and Maurya empires. Setting aside their proportions of global population or economy which would alone arguably qualify them as world empires, there’s also their enduring influence of Hellenic culture and Buddhism respectively.

Top Tens – History: Top 10 Empires (Revised: New Meteoric Rise Rankings) (6) Persia – Achaemenid Empire

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Achaemenid Empire (at its greatest extent under Darius the Great 522-486 BC) by Cattette for Wikipedia “Achaemenid Empire” licensed under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en

 

(6) PERSIA – ACHAEMENID EMPIRE (550 – 330 BC)

 

“The empire that kicked off all the other empires” – the largest empire in history up until that point and first of the world empires, in impact rather than literal global extent. Best known in Western history as the liberators of the Jewish exiles in Babylon and recurring antagonists of the Greeks, not surprisingly reflecting the two predominant sources of Western culture as Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman.

The Persians originally started off as nomadic vassals of the preceding Median Empire, the extent and nature of which is disputed but apparently laid much of the groundwork for the latter Persian Empire in forming a powerful Iranian state. Cyrus the Great then founded the first Persian or Achaemenid Empire, by rebelling against and supplanting the Medes before then conquering the Neo-Babylonian Empire in Mesopotamia and kingdom of Lydia in Anatolia.

Ultimately the borders of the Persian Empire extended from central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east, to the Nile, Black Sea and Balkans in the west – although famously the Greek city states successfully resisted it in the Greek-Persian Wars. It was so big it had four capitals – Babylon, Ecbatana, Susa and Persepolis.

The Persian model of governance – “a successful model of centralized, bureaucratic administration via the use of satraps; its multicultural policy; building infrastructure, such as road systems and a postal system; the use of an official language across its territories; and the development of civil services, including its possession of a large, professional army” – essentially set the template for subsequent empires, particularly in the Middle East – influencing not only the Greeks and Romans, but also the Arabs and the Abbasid Caliphate. For the latter, it “left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.

Its ultimate nemesis was Alexander the Great – apparently an admirer of Cyrus the Great, but who just took the empire from Cyrus’ more pathetic descendant Darius III. Oh well – he wasn’t using it anyway. And the legacy of Cyrus suited Alexander better, including that title of the Great.

However, the first Persian or Achaemenid Empire might have been swept from history, but Persia itself continued to be a seat of empires – it revived under the Parthian and Sassanid empires, both recurring antagonists of the Romans until the Sassanids were conquered by the Arabs. Even then, Persia managed to revive itself under Islamic or Turkic dynasties.

 

 

Standard of Cyrus the Great

 

DECLINE & FALL

 

For tenacity in decline…yes and no. The Achaemenid Empire itself collapsed with indecent haste, conquered by Alexander as he pursued Darius III from one corner of the empire to the next like a Macedonian Terminator. However, the Persians proved quite adept at the long game of reviving themselves while under the nominal satrapy of their conquerors, whom they ultimately overthrew to revive their empire in even more enduring and tenacious form.

 

THE ACHAEMENID EMPIRE NEVER FELL

 

Well yes, the Achaemenid Empire fell rather dramatically to Alexander the Great, but Persia kept bouncing back, the zombie franchise of empires – as the Parthians, Sassanids, Safavids and the ironic ideological empire of the latter day Islamic Republic.

 

METEORIC RISE

 

The archetypal meteoric rise as well as the second most meteoric rise among my top ten empires, in that it rose to close to the full extent or at least the core of its imperial power through its founder Cyrus the Great – in just twenty years from 550 BC to 530 BC.

While it conquered further territory under his successors, notably Egypt under his son Cambyses II and its largest extent under Darius from 522 BC to 486 BC, the empire founded by Cyrus “was the largest empire the world have ever seen to that point” – and was substantially the same empire that endured for about two centuries after him.

 

THE SUN NEVER SETS

 

Persia was the first of a long line of what can be termed world empires, as opposed to global ones – that is, in terms of their enduring influence and impact rather than a literal geographic global extent.

Although interestingly the Persians may well have been the origin of the claim for their empire as the empire on which the sun never sets. According to Herodotus’ Histories, Xerxes made the claim before invading Greece – “We shall extend the Persian territory as far as God’s heaven reaches. The sun will then shine on no land beyond our borders.”

 

EVIL EMPIRE

 

Well, with their mutant armies and war rhinoceri…wait – that was the film 300. Outside of that film’s depictions of the Persian Empire as the Mordor of its time, which reflects Greek accounts of them as antagonists to some degree, the Persians do reasonably well in avoiding the evil empire tag – although obviously they didn’t build and maintain an empire of that size by being nice.

And they do pretty well in their Biblical portrayals, due to Cyrus’ liberation of the Jews from Babylonian exile – while Babylon is immortalized by the Bible as the symbol of evil, Cyrus is praised by it and even hailed as messiah, a term that used to be more generic for one anointed by God.